Womb removal woman's fight for justice almost over
A woman whose womb was needlessly removed by disgraced obstetrician Michael Neary said today that her fight for justice was almost over.
Marie Reaburn experienced early menopause when the shamed consultant wrongly took out her reproductive organs as she underwent surgery for a fibroid, a non-cancerous growth in the womb.
The 60-year-old was among 29 women excluded from a State redress scheme because they were over 40 at the time.
Patient Focus support group pledged to keep fighting for six other victims also excluded for a variety of reasons.
Mrs Reaburn, from Ardee, Co Louth, said a commitment that Health Minister Dr James Reilly will bring forward proposals for compensation within weeks was amazing.
"We just kept fighting and we've got there," said the mother-of-two, who was three days past her 40th birthday when she was operated on in February 1992.
"It's a huge burden to be lifted and to be recognised and not to feel that at 40 years of age you're on the scrap heap, because that's how it made you feel.
"Please God before the end of this year it will be all resolved and we will be able to put it behind us and move on with our lives.
"It's been one hell of a long road that we've come down."
Patient Focus started its campaign against Neary in 1999. He was stuck off the medical register in 2003.
A state inquiry later revealed he performed 129 hysterectomies at Our Lady of Lourdes Hospital, Drogheda, between 1974 and 1998. The files of another 44 patients were intentionally and unlawfully removed from the hospital.
The report found a matron first expressed concerns over rate carried out by Dr Neary in 1978/79, but they were ignored.
About 200 women were compensated under a redress scheme set up by the state.
Cross-party politicians including Dr Reilly, Labour's Jan O'Sullivan, Sinn Fein's Caoimhghin O Caolain and Fianna Fail's Johnny Brady had campaigned with Patient Focus to convince former health minister Mary Harney to overturn the rule on age.
Dr Reilly said Attorney General Marie Whelan was examining the legal constraints of six other women, some who fell outside the original redress scheme because just one ovary was removed during the hysterectomy and two whose babies died.
He told the Dail the women had suffered at the hands of an individual who was clearly dysfunctional and damaged lives.
"As a member of the medical profession, I am deeply ashamed," he added.
Cathriona Molloy, of Patient Focus, welcomed Dr Reilly's commitment but stressed it would be morally wrong for the Government to exclude the six women.
The package could cost an estimated €3bn.
"I hope by the end of the summer recess that we will have some scheme for the women. They really deserve it," she said.
"It's been a long haul for everybody and it's a chapter that needs to be closed in medical history in this country."
